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“Are you a student at the University?” I ask her, not turning around.
“Yes,” she says after swallowing politely. I can imagine the motion of her throat as she takes those first few bites. I’m filled with that kind of gratitude you get when you get a stray puppy to accept food from your hand.
“I could drop you off there after you've eaten. Or maybe your parents’ house? I need to go out anyway.”
“Um...”
I turn around, and sort of wish I hadn't. She's looking at me with those big, innocent eyes, her fingers shyly covering her mouth as she chews. She has turned up the cuffs on my shirt so that it's not too long and her delicate wrists extend from the fabric, so fine and dainty I want to wrap them both in my hands. I remember vividly how she nuzzled against me as I carried her out of the bar. My palms itch, wishing I could feel that again.
I can't think about that.
I'm going to stop thinking about that.
Oh my God, what is wrong with me?
“Actually, I sort of need to get dressed…”
“Oh, of course you do. Your parents’ house then?”
“I don't have a… I mean, could you just take me to the sorority house? Chi Rho Pi? Do you know it?”
I wish she hadn't said that. Acid sloshes through my mouth as I think about those horrible girls.
“Yeah, I know it,” I growl, finding myself gripping the edge of the counter. “I don't think you should go back there.”
Her eyebrows go up in two perfect curves. Slowly she sets the fork down and then drops her hands into her lap.
“Excuse me?”
I don't know how to talk to her. There are about thirty things that I want to say to her all at once, but I'm instantly too angry to say them at all. But, what do I care? She's not my responsibility. And she's looking at me like it's not my business.
She's right about that.
“Kita, do you know how you ended up here?”
And she blushes. This rosy hue shoots up from her collarbones all the way up to the tops of her cheeks in three seconds. It makes her freckles glow. Her lips open slightly as she breathes in and I hear her respiration increase.
Oh my God, it's one of the prettiest things I have ever seen.
“But we didn't… I know we didn't,” she objects. The words tumble urgently from her mouth. “I don't drink. I don't know what happened!”
“No, it's all right… nothing happened. That’s not what I’m saying,” I explain to her, feeling like a dirty old man who just got caught thinking dirty old man thoughts. But I didn't do anything.
I have nothing to feel bad about.
Other than a few thoughts. Just a few. Which I’m going to stop having immediately.
She shifts back and forth in her seat, staring at the few pieces of pancake left on her plate. After the kettle boils, I pour the water over the Italian coffee brown to the timer for 3 1/2 minutes. Come to think of it, coffee really does smell good.
“So, are you telling me that you live at the sorority house? While you are a pledge?”
She stares at me curiously. “Yeah, I know it’s usually just full members, but they kind of bent that rule for me. Lizzie said… why are you making a face?”
I realize I am making a face. I can't help it. Just the mention of Lizzie's name aggravates me. The last three years, she's been in charge of the bake sale. She's the one who turned it from an actual bake sale with cakes and pies and maybe a little bit of flirtation — okay, a lot of flirtation and maybe a fair amount of exploitation — into something that was just 100% exploitation. She's unrepentantly using these girls. And she cackles about it, because she thinks it's funny too.
But I don't want to say that out loud. Instead, I ask her, “How much do you know about your friend Lizzie?”
Kita shrugs one shoulder, dislodging the shirt slightly and exposing a couple more inches of smooth, touchable shoulder. A shiver runs up my thighs.
